Where There Is Always Room For More

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Monthly Archives: March 2012

I’ve officially raced 4 of my 12 races for 2012! While it’s been an up and down trial of what works and what doesn’t, I’m pretty proud that I’ve made it this far and I’m still planning to make it through the year running.

Here are my races from my first to my most recent. And if you are interesting in following along, check out my running blog.

January Race

February Race #1

February Race #2

March Race

As a reward for all my hard work up to this point, I’m giving myself the gift of a massage and some quiet spa time. Got my appointment all set up and I plan to use every amenity they offer!

I am resistant to change. Good or bad, change is just that, change. Things will be different. My brain and my heart has a hard time accepting this for fear that these different things will be not as comfortable as the current state I’m in.

I like comfort. I like knowing as best as possible what tomorrow brings. Tomorrow is Monday and for me that means work and school, waking early for showers and making lunches and the unfortunate commute from home to school to work. Monday means payroll and printing new reports, a large mail load after the hiatus of the weekend.

Monday is Monday. And I like it that way.

Lately though, nothing is predictable. There are new signs to watch out for, new sensations to be wary of. A closed door could mean a meeting I’m not included in or a rough morning or tears or a hidden broken heart. An unexpected email could mean someone is asking something new of me, something bigger than I am capable of offering. Or a request that is completely inconsiderate of me.

So now Monday is the reminder that I’m no longer free to hide my head in the sand and pretend nothing is wrong. It’s the end of my freedom where I can choose to run wild, do what I want, cook and bake or spend time with those I love. I can live on the weekends, live in the vicarious way my six year old runs down hills and up slides.
Monday is the day I have to face the reality that I’m not free and that not all dreams are meant to be realized.

Oh how I wish I had friends. People to speak these concerns to, truths that I keep to myself. My fears of the unknown and this dreadful feeling of limbo. I hate limbo and I hate talking when plans could be made. But I hate making plans when I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing.

Having no close friends but one, I’m forced to find comforts in solitude and things I love. My nose is firmly planted in books these days, escaping to the fictional worlds where people are introduced, the plot is brought to climax and then a resolution is secured within 400 pages. I also retreat into my movies, actors and scripts I know so well I can repeat them myself. Movies I needn’t watch because I know each scene by heart. The comfort in knowing there are no surprises soothes my soul.

Oddly, I do see why I’m in this state. I know that I’m meant to learning how to be in the present and how to live each moment as they come. To prove to me my strengths and abilities to cope. I’ve seen so much change over the last 2 years and the hits keep coming. Just when I think things will stop shifting and changing, I’m dealt another blow and I’m left standing with no support.

Change is inevitable. It’s how the soul adapts to such drastic alterations that matters. So I’m left. Left accepting I can do nothing but go with it.

I’m weary. I’m waiting for the next scene, for the next chapter. I keep watching, waiting for the characters to discover themselves and be done with this charade. Or for the author to stop playing with the lives of their characters and to end the story. I’m tired of trying to guess what will happen next or what the grand scheme of the plot is to be. I just want it done, finished, so that the dust can settle and we can begin to make the adjustments to our new lives.

I’m resistant to change. Especially when I notice the need for change in me.

It’s only 3 months into 2012, a year I thought I had every handled when it all changed.

It totally felt like it was going to be my year, the year in which I got back all I lost. It was going to be the year in which I found myself, in which I knew what I wanted and how I was going to achieve those dreams.

I had it! My hand was firmly grasped around those strings tethered to the balloons of all the pretty wishes and thoughts I had. In vibrant colors of blue and purple and red and yellow.

I’ve lost them now. An unexpected shot to the heart sent my hands to my chest for cover and let my dreams drift off into the air.

Letting go was a necessity for that moment. I needed to protect myself, to guard my heart a little. But now that the danger has passed, I’m reaching and grasping at the disappearing ends of all I felt was important. Of all the dreams I held dear.

I’m tripping and crashing as I chase after all these things I worked so hard for. Bumping along, falling down and scraping my knees, I find myself stumbling as if blind.

Without grace I fumble to once again feel the tug of my dreams in my hand as the winds sweep by. I should never had let go. I’ll never do it again. So I stagger along, reaching and jumping to grip onto the ends of my dreams, to latch on and hold tight, never to let go again.

A physiologic reaction by an organism to an uncomfortable or unfamiliar physical or psychological stimulus. Biological changes result from stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system, including a heightened state of alertness, anxiety, increased heart rate, and sweating.

The stimulus or circumstance causing such a reaction.

Stress, it is something we all deal with on a regular basis. There is eustress and distress. Life is balance of these two things, the good and bad, the positive and the negative.

But what happens when a sensitive system (like myself) has a heightened amount of both the positive and negative? Heightened so much that they practically cancel each other out and life is just a sea of constant change and heightened emotional static?

I’m unfortunately finding out what it means to be thrust into the cold waters of the unknown.

I’m under a lot of pressure, both for good changes that I can’t believe are happening and I’m super excited for but also for the bad things, the ones where I wake up and don’t want to leave my bed for fear of what lies ahead.

I can feel all of this noise and interference throughout my day, the static of my brain unable to stop processing both the positive and the negative that surrounds me constantly. It’s like walking around with headphones on; the left one is playing a steady stream of white noise while the right one plays a constant flow of exciting instrumental songs. There is no reprieve. It’s constant and suffocating.

Underneath the noise and the insistent interference is a steady foundation blossoming. I’m finding that I am a strong person and I’m learning how to build my life, my faith, my views based on what I believe. Not on what I was taught to believe and not on what I was lead to feel. But instead on what I know is true.

Sounds wonderfully existential and mature, right? Well I wouldn’t describe it as such. It’s more painful and unsettling. To find that everything you held dear is no longer something to trust is devastating. And even though I’ve chosen to wipe away all I know and rebuild based on what I want to believe, it’s bittersweet.

Growth is wonderful in hindsight but painful to go through. Pain doesn’t even begin to properly describe the feelings and thoughts swirling within me everyday. And when I say everyday, I’m not being melodramatic. It is constant and tiring.

I could be a bigger person and look at the bright side only. I could see all I’m learning and the tools I’m gaining in the wake of this storm. Instead I can’t help but cling to all I thought I knew as it dies within my arms.

Some days I am the bigger person and I readily take all that I’m learning and I’m happy for it. And thankfully I have someone to be happy with. And then there are other days when I’m not so strong and my frightened inner child is fearful and dreading the unknown. On these days I shut down and hold fast to that someone in hopes we survive the onslaught.

I’m tired. Tired beyond my bones and deeply saddened. I just want a break, a little reprieve from the waves crashing against me. I know I’ll survive because that’s what I am, a survivor. I just can’t help but wonder what the damage will cost.

For now I can only take a step forward and hope there is solid ground beneath my outstretched foot and that a new fracture doesn’t appear as I rest my weary soles.